Remus Lupin and the Impossible Life
by SaltwaterGarden
Summary: It's the late 1970s. Voldemort is gaining power. AIDS hasn't become a news sensation yet, but the first cases have already been recorded. The wizarding world is not a great place to grow up. Remus Lupin is queer and transgender and life is tough and his friends are bad influences.
1. Chapter 1

It was already bad enough, since his last name was Lupin. Lupin _already meant_ "wolflike". Remus, ever the pedant, pointed out that it was also the name of a flower, and so not necessarily a premonition. It was the act of choosing the first name, Remus insisted, that actually did the thing, and framed "Lupin" in lupine terms. It was clear to his friends, though, that the addition of the first name to the last made the whole business faintly over-the-top. Particularly considering unnamed circumstances related to furry little problems.

"There are so many other names," Peter said again, loudly, over breakfast. "You could have been John, or Thomas, or anything. It's not even funny." It had been six weeks since Remus's second big secret had been discovered by the others, and, as usual, Peter was not catching on that the joke, such as it was, had been done to death. The joke was that Remus had chose his own name and this made the obvious wolf pun much worse. Peter enjoyed having inside jokes with the rest of them. It made him feel that he was part of the group. Because of this, he continued to cover the same conversational ground long after the rest had moved on. Remus would have been annoyed, except that he could sense that James and Sirius were already annoyed with Peter, and he felt that Peter should not have the whole world against him.

"_His _name," Remus replied calmly, stabbing a sausage with his knife and gesturing across the table, "is _Sirius Black_." Remus hoped this would settle the subject. He looked back down at his Potions book.

Peter contemplated this for a moment, his grin fading. "I don't understand," he said, finally, defeated. James snorted into his breakfast, and Sirius grinned.

"Yeah, mine gives one some real _pause_," Sirius said, nonchalantly shoving black pudding into his mouth.

"I think it's the pure blood. Gives a great and terrible power for premonitory puns," James said, his mouth full of boiled egg.

"What?" Peter said.

"I should wonder that your last name isn't Cerynitis Hind, James," Sirius said.

"Fuck, can you imagine?" James took off his enormous glasses and struck a pose, gazing off over the heads of the Hufflepuffs into the distance solemnly. "I'd be a real wizard, then. I'd be such an ace, with a name like that."

"Probably in the same league as the Blacks, you'd be."

"Oh, no, light years ahead. Way off in the stars above you. We occupy," James said, putting his glasses back on, "a totally different-space."

"James, that's so bad."

"It is rather bad," Remus agreed, but he was laughing. He felt thankful that James and Sirius had managed to redirect the conversation so it no longer focused on him.

"You're all so smug about it," Peter said, petulantly. It was clear he didn't understand the puns.

"I think," James said, ignoring Peter, "that instead of the Marauders we should be called the Bad Pun Collective."

"We could form a club."

"Write a book."

"Go on tour."

"Give talks at universities and conferences."

"Impress your friends, delight your family, make your enemies giggle and howl with rage at the same time."

"We'll make a fortune."

"Get chicks."

"Oh yes," James said, "one can't forget the chicks."

"They will come in droves."

"I want to make a pun about chicks, but I can't figure out how."

"It's all right, we can't all be winners."

"Who says I'm not a winner?"

"A member of one of the most illustrious dark families in the British Wizarding World."

"Back to the chicks."

"They will be drawn to the unsavory, taboo, but irresistible allure of the puns." Both of them had stopped trying to eat breakfast, as they were talking too fast and laughing too hard.

Remus took a swig of tea. "You know what's worse?"

"Worse than my space puns?"

"What's worse, Remus?" Sirius turned to Remus, his face already anticipating his next laugh. His hair was longer than was fashionable and he blew it out of his face with a little fluffy breath.

"My mother's maiden name," Remus announced solemnly, "was Howell."

Sirius sobered immediately. "No."

"It really was."

"That just goes too far," he cried out in grief.

"That's a bummer," James agreed. "Fate has been cruel to you this day, my friend."

"Not just this day, mind you," Sirius said, with enthusiastic, increasing sadness. "That's thirty-odd years of the stars planning this day. Thirty-odd years of carefully maneuvering the lives of one Howell and one Lupin, in order to produce, at long last, the very worst example of dramatic irony in existence, that sixteen-year-old tragedy on legs, Remus Lupin."

Peter laughed, and they all ignored him.

"My life is a sad movie," Remus agreed placidly.

"It's too dreadful, I don't even want to contemplate it."

Remus glanced at his watch and closed his book. "You don't have time in any case. Potions starts in ten minutes."

"Is it that time already?" Sirius rose to his feet, hopping up on the bench as he disentangled his lanky form from it. He raised his arms, like Headmaster Dumbledore at the end of a speech and then opened then towards James theatrically. "Come, Cerynitis, we must away."

"Only too readily, my starry friend. Evans'll probably be there already."

"Starry friend? Really?"

"I used all my star puns up."

James and Sirius set off, arm over shoulder. Remus and Peter followed.

Remus's second secret had been kept three years longer than his first. He imagined that he had been able to keep it so long because James, Sirius and Peter had let their guard down after they discovered he was a werewolf. In the end, Remus had told them. He had been tired of hiding things, particularly when he had to adjust stories about his childhood. It made him feel ridiculous, as if he was trying to be mysterious when really he was just hiding—well, it wasn't really that much, in the end. Only a change of pronouns, and of names, and some very risky experimental transfiguration on himself in third year which had not come off quite perfectly but hadn't turned out as badly as it might have. Remus wasn't sure that James and Sirius would take the news well, but Remus did not want to be afraid of their disapproval any more (he had never cared about Peter's disapproval, as, even in Remus's generous view of the world, Peter did not really count). So, at the beginning of sixth year, Remus began looking for an opportunity to tell them.

In the end it happened just after the Christmas holiday, as they were smoking at the edge of the lake. Really it was only Sirius smoking; James was slightly athsmatic and liked to be seen smoking but really just held lit cigarettes until they burned down. Peter attempted to smoke while not enjoying it, rubbing his tongue against his teeth to get rid of the taste. Remus stole drags off Sirius's cigarettes, a slightly erotically charged gesture which Sirius had never complained about. Sirius had just made a joke about witches which had to do with menstruating, and Remus had taken his cigarette away and told him why that was inappropriate and sexist. Sirius had asked why Remus cared. Remus, exhaling smoke into the frigid air and holding a cigarette in his mittened hand, figured that this was as good a time as any to explain, that for ten years these sorts of comments had been directed at him, too, and that it had been awful and violating, and that anyway people who menstruated weren't always reliably girls.

It had confused everyone pretty badly, and in the end it took about an hour to make sure they understood.

"No," Remus eventually found himself saying again for the third time, "I just mean that I think you could go to St. Mungo's and persuade them. I didn't dare. I just did it myself."

"I didn't know you could do magic for that," James said plainly, staring at the tip of his cigarette, which was now mostly ashes. He looked faintly confused, still, but he wasn't bursting with rage or telling Remus off, so there was that.

"Well, it's not exactly something you learn how to do in class," Remus said. "And I didn't really... I had to go to Knockturn Alley to find the book. My mom still doesn't know how dangerous it was. She's a Muggle, she doesn't really understand that kind of thing. But anything's possible." Remus tried to find the balance between explaining and oversharing.

"I read a story about something like it," Sirius said, which surprised everyone. "Though it was the other way. And Muggles. A Muggle woman—though I suppose she had been a man—got surgery. April Ashley. She's a model, I think."

"If she said she was a woman," Remus said, "she's always been a woman."

Sirius shrugged nonchalantly and lit a new cigarette, and for a second Remus was very angry. Then again, Remus thought, he was taking it a lot better than expected.

"Did it...go all right?" Peter asked, looking at Remus's trousers as if he was wondering if there was a newt under the zipper. Which, Remus reflected, there might well have been, had he been a little worse at transfiguration. Still, it was impolite to ask. Remus fumbled and stuttered.

"Of course it did," Sirius said, clapping Remus on the back. "Remus has been transforming into weirder things since he was a tiny pup, and nothing terrible has happened yet."

"Don't jinx it," Remus said.

James was still looking faintly bemused. "I never would have guessed, though," he said. "How did you get into the boys' dormitory?"

"What do you mean, how did I get in?" Remus asked. "My mother had them register me. My dad didn't want her to, but she figured out how owls worked by then and Dumbledore had already broken so many school policies to get me in in the first place that he figured that one more wouldn't really matter."

"Dumbledore, man," James said.

"I owe him a lot," Remus agreed, the words tired in his mouth. He felt tired, sometimes, of owing so much, to so many people.

"Wait," Sirius said suddenly, looking as if he had had a revelation. "Does this mean you can get into girls' dormitories, Remus?"

"What."

"Girls' dormitories. The stairs turn into smooth marble that you slide down if you're a dude and try to go up. Do they do that to you too?"

"You would think of that," James said. Remus was not as sure. Sirius seemed to be so aggressively heterosexual and so loudly focused on girls that it seemed to Remus that he was almost certainly queer.

"Seriously, Remus, this is a life-or-death question."

Remus tried to think. "I don't think so," he said slowly. "I mean, last year I think I went into the dormitories when I gave Maria Stebbins that scarf I borrowed back."

James was now looking interested. "Remus," he began, "You could-"

"I'm not stealing anything of Evans' for you, James," Remus said. "That's terrifically immoral and you need to get over her anyway."

Peter continued to look at Remus's crotch.

"Peter, you're staring at my crotch," Remus said. "Please stop."

"Yes, Peter, stop, Remus is mine, not yours," Sirius added with characteristic cheer. He grabbed Remus around the waist in a way that made Remus faintly hot under his collar, despite the frigid January air.


	2. Chapter 2

Severus Snape was a lot like Peter Pettigrew, Remus thought, except he had more spine.

Peter never stood up for himself; he laughed when people made him the butt of jokes. Remus worried about Peter because of this, because he was sure that Peter was taking everything to heart in a way that James and Sirius really couldn't imagine. The point, though, was that Peter never hurt anyone else that much—oh, certainly, he might say hurtful things if other people were saying them, but he wouldn't lash out at the people who most hurt him. Snape, though as physically pathetic as Peter, and as unliked, was far less harmless. Remus had always had some unease about the amount James and Sirius bullied Snape, but he never did anything, as he assumed sooner or later someone would put a stop to it. It was only right and fair that they should. Schools were supposed to do that—and, Remus figured, it would be better for James and Sirius to learn their own lesson in that regard than for Remus to try and pound it into them. In any case, Remus didn't like Snape any more than anyone else, so he felt no personal obligation to do the boy any favors.

Snape had not always been revolting; originally he had been a bright if painfully awkward child who was just very poor and very bad at small talk. Remus had worked with Snape in some of his classes first and second year, and he had been all right to talk to, as long as one wasn't mean to him and did not make any allusions to his personal appearance. As he got older, though, Snape soured like syrup left in an imperfectly sealed jar until at last he was a bitter, pimpled sixteen-year-old who was impossible to talk to except if you wanted to hear about a lot of very deadly potions, experimental magic, dark creatures, or, Remus suspected, the Dark Arts. Snape hung around with the wrong people, talked about magical supremacy, debated extermination policies for giants, and enthusiastically spat slurs at muggle-borns and half-bloods (though, if Remus was right, Snape was a half-blood himself). Recently, Snape had begun dropping hints that he might know something about Remus.

"Ever notice anything odd about that Lupin kid?" Remus had heard him asking Lucius Malfoy as Remus passed in the hallway one day. Lucius had not been particularly interested, since Snape was unpopular, sour and boring, but Snape had gone on, according to Sirius, who had been there after Remus left, to ask several other people if there was anything odd they noticed about that Lupin kid.

"He knows something," Sirius had said to Remus later, quietly. "I think he's figured something out. He may know about your furry little problem."

"Don't worry about it," Remus had said, and had proceeded to worry about it for the rest of the day and some of the month after.

It was not as clear-cut as Sirius imagined it was, Remus knew. Snape noticing something odd could mean any one of his several secrets was out. Remus was not sure if Snape suspected he was queer, or a werewolf, or that he had been raised a girl, but he was not eager to find out. Remus was not very ashamed to take comfort in the fact he could be assured of James and Sirius's protection if Snape ever told anyone about him.

Beyond that general nastiness, though, which was after all not so uncommon even outside of Slytherin, was a sort of drive to exact revenge on the world, and to make others hurt, which Remus feared. Remus had seen the same kind of drive in Sirius on more than one occasion, but in Sirius it quickly dissolved into laughter and manifested itself in largely harmless pranks, like the time Sirius had almost failed Muggle Studies and in revenge had charmed all the pens on his professor's desk and in his office to float just out of his reach so he was unable to grade the last papers of the quarter. Remus had a feeling that if it had been Snape (though it wouldn't have been, as Snape was deadly serious about his schooling and marks) the professor would have come to some kind of sticky end.

So when Sirius pushed Snape's head down as he passed him working in the library in late January, and when James put powdered beetles into his precisely measured potion when his back was turned in class, Remus, as usual, did nothing. Instead, he worried, and wondered when, eventually, things would reach the breaking point.

At night, nobody in the Marauders' dormitory ever went to bed before about midnight. Originally, during the first couple of years Remus had been at Hogwarts, it had just been Sirius and James keeping Remus and Peter up with their talking. However, one couldn't spend seven years listening to your dormitory mates talk with one's face to the wall. Soon enough it had become a custom to sit around and eat the food that James' mother always sent him while practicing small spells, doing last-minute essays, or gossiping. Recently, the hushed late-night sessions had become a place in which Sirius and Peter practiced transforming into their animal forms. It had taken months and a lot of skipping classes to chant in hushed tones around cauldrons in secret passageways and in James' parents' house over summer holidays. Not all the chanting, Remus suspected, had been strictly necessary, but Peter and Sirius could now transform into, respectively, a rat and a dog, and James could turn into a stag, whenever he was in a large enough space.

Peter had been deeply disappointed when he discovered his form was a rat. "I can't believe it," he had said, transforming back after just a few seconds in rat form, the first time. "That's stupid."

"Oh my God, Peter," James had said. "It's not stupid. Think of all the ways you can use that. You can hide anywhere, for one, and steal pretty much anything that's not locked up-"

"Goodness sakes, Peter, look more cheerful. You'll finally be of use to us," Sirius had said, grinning. Sirius had nearly split his sides laughing. Eventually, after a few awkward minutes of looking like he was about to cry, Peter had laughed too. Remus sensed more than a little resentment in the laughter, which he didn't blame Peter for. Sirius could, after all, be very cruel.

On this particular night, Sirius was not being cruel to Peter, because he wasn't talking at all. Sirius was in dog form with his head on Remus's knees, as Remus did his homework for him. Peter was doing his own homework, stretched out on his bed. Occasionally he would ask Remus questions. James was eating a biscuit and playing with the golden Snitch he had borrowed or stolen from the school. The Snitch kept flying up toward the ceiling out of James' reach. Sirius had originally been watching James and making encouraging little yapping noises, but now his eyes were half-closed and his gaze appeared to be directed at the wall. Remus found himself wondering if Sirius thought about things the same way in dog form. Certainly all of them were more sentient as animals than Remus was as a wolf, but they did change, a little, and not talking was only part of it. James ran away from things far more easily and skittishly as a stag than as a boy, and Peter tended to forget what he was doing and hide, for long periods, until Sirius went back to whichever spot in the grass he had been last to look for him. Remus wasn't sure if Sirius's mind changed at all while in dog form. If it didn't, Remus wondered, did the boy Sirius also want to put his head on Remus's lap? It was a thrilling possibility, and Remus allowed himself to entertain it while writing out the answers to a series of questions about hippogriff population decline in the Alps. Sirius's breath was warm on his calves.

"What do you think Vietnamese Thousand-Year Turtles have to do with the Loch Ness Monster, Remus?" Peter asked, scrunching his forehead up. "I'm supposed to write how they're related."

"Same ancestral species, just isolated in different lakes, I read," Remus answered. "Page 657 in Blum."

"You read to page 657?" James was standing on his dresser, trying to retreive the Snitch from where it hovered. He knocked over a tin can of pencils with his foot. It made a loud clanging noise that would have echoed all around the tower if there weren't a hugely powerful_ Muffliato_ spell over their dormitory.

"I read what we were assigned to read, because none of you do any work and I knew someone had to," Remus answered. Peter, who looked pleased to be placed in any category with James and Sirius, shrugged in an obvious imitation of the latter.

"There's just so much better to do than study," Peter said, nonetheless squinting at his unfinished homework and scribbling answers down. Remus, as always, felt both fiercely protective of and repulsed by Peter and his pathetic attempts to seem cool.

"That's true," James said. Peter smiled. "For instance, there's girls."

"Give it a rest, James," Remus said.

"Just because you are a neuter, Remus, doesn't mean that the rest of us-"

"I'm not a neuter, I'm quite sexual," Remus interrupted, looking up sharply from his homework. James seemed taken aback and laughed.

"Oh you are, are you?"

"I am," Remus said, "and I am not a neuter. Don't call me that." He did not elaborate further. He realized abruptly that there was a third secret he was keeping from his friends—that he was queer. He hadn't thought of it as such before. He felt like life was an endless procession of secrets. The weight of Sirius across his knees was very heavy. The dog seemed to be asleep.

"You haven't even got anything that does anything, though," Peter said, loudly, guffawing. Remus's protective feelings toward Peter faded quietly away.

Remus stared with a double-barreled glare at Peter. He imagined that his eyes were flashing dangerously, but it probably looked more like tears welling up. "Excuse you," he said, curtly. James, Remus noticed out of the corner of his eye, was looking shiftily around for a way to change the subject. He, at least, recognized that this was touchy ground at best and probably a subject unfit for even lewd banter between friends.

Peter did not catch on. "Remus," he said, thinking that James was going to help him with the interrogation, "what have you even got?"

Remus felt his chest caving in on itself and his throat closing. He looked over at James again for help, but James was staring at the ceiling awkwardly—awkwardly because the Snitch was clasped in his left hand and there was nothing on the ceiling but spiders.

Suddenly, though, Sirius was a boy again, his head still on Remus's knees. "That doesn't matter, Peter. It's a man's personal business what he has to work with."

"Thank you, Sirius," Remus said.

"You're not off the hook, Mr. Sexual. You woke me up with your boasting."

"It's what you get for sleeping on me."

"I sleep where I please," Sirius said, not moving, his dark wavy hair spread out across Remus's thighs. He closed his eyes again. "Tell us, Remus, who do you fancy so much that you'd give up your vows of celibacy for them?"

"I never made any vows of celibacy-"

"Oh, yes, right, Sir I Don't Think I Have Ever Thought About Any Of The Gryffindor Girls That Way."

"-you just never asked, and I am very private."

"Apparently!"

"You talk so much it was hardly noticeable," Remus said, wondering if he was blushing. If he were blushing, it would be very idiotic. His face felt hot.

"So who do you fancy that makes you so sexual, Remus?"

Remus wondered how to answer.

"I still want to know how you'd manage to do anything with anyone," Peter piped up in the silence. This made the silence stretch on longer, unbearably long, two ends of infinity progressing towards one another at a snail's pace.

"Give it a rest, Pete," Sirius drawled. "Use that little rodent brain." James laughed. He still looked uncomfortable, even though he was usually the loudest when the conversation turned to sex (and by extension redhead girls, and within that category, Lily Evans).

Peter was being obnoxious. "But where-"

"Lots of ways to skin a kneazle." Sirius had a complacent, uncurious air that was totally out of character. Remus wondered for a moment if it was a show, but he was not at all sure why Sirius would want to cover up his curiosity. Politeness and decorum weren't his mode of operation. "Plently of places to—ahem- What I want to know, Peter," Sirius continued, "and what Remus might confess to us as he continues to girlishly—sorry, is that rude—_effeminately_ blush—is that better— is who does he want to skin the kneazle with?"

Again, there was an infinite silence, made even quieter by the _Muffliato_.

"I am never talking to any of you again," Remus said, standing unceremoniously up and kicking Sirius off his lap onto the floor. "I am going to sleep."

"See, now we'll never know, Peter! It's all your fault!" Sirius threw a pillow at Peter, who seemed to take it as a joke and ducked, smiling.

"You're the one who called him effeminate, Sirius," James said.

"It's not meant as an insult," Sirius said. But it was not clear how Sirius did mean it, as after that he transformed back into a dog and curled up on his bed and closed his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The Scotland late winter pushed steam up on the inside of the glass, and Remus grew more melancholy. He did not let on. He wasn't sure why he felt the way he did. As March passed, unbearably slowly, he watched his breath in classes. Central heating was something wizards were not good at, and some classrooms were nearly as cold as the frosty lawns and icy lake. The Muggle Studies classroom had it worst.

Remus had begun taking Muggle Studies out of curiosity. He remembered that his mother, when he was young, had always seemed to feel ashamed that she had no magical powers. There was no reason for this, since she was from a Muggle family and, as Lyall frequently said to her over dinner, there was no shame in it if it wasn't in one's blood anyway, but it seemed to make Hope Lupin feel increasingly on edge. She continued to work at her job at the insurance company, at least until she became sick, but she never spoke about what exactly she did when there to Remus, and Lyall Lupin did not encourage Remus to accompany his mother on the trips to the Muggle public library she made every week. Because he hated his father, Remus had read a large number of Muggle childrens' novels nonetheless. They were much better than wizard novels, mostly because they were so much more imaginative. There were more Muggle books about places other than Britain, for instance, and it was a common theme for magic in Muggle stories to seem far more exciting than it was in real life. Reading books like that had made Remus feel better on days just before and after a full moon, when he was too ill or scarred to be seen or to stand and could not go out of the house. It helped, too, that werewolves in Muggle stories were not invariably monsters.

The Muggle Studies professor was a woman named Phyllis Rosemond. She was a Squib. She had joked about this on the first day of class.

"Please don't cast any enchantments on me," she had said, smiling. She had a slight mustache. "Just imagine that I am a small baby deer and that trust and weakness are the only things I have going for me."

There had been laughter from the Slytherin table, which made Remus remember his father telling him when he was young that in pureblood families, non-magical children were frequently thrown into ponds. Remus was still not sure if this was true; Lyall had a tendency to control people with fear. It may have been significant, Remus reflected, that Lyall had told his child this story when Remus was eight years old and still hadn't managed any magic besides turning into a large, terrified wolf.

As Muggle Studies was a new class, many students had signed up totally unsure of what to expect from it. It became clear, as the year had gone on, that Professor Rosemond was unlike any other professor in Hogwarts. For one thing, she played Muggle music during class, on a huge gramophone which one didn't have to charm to make work.

"It's Benny Goodman," she had told Remus, when he asked her one day after class.

"I like it," he said. "My mother was a Muggle," he explained.

Sirius dropped out of Muggle Studies halfway through the year; he had done well enough in his other subjects that he did not imagine he needed it. James, who imagined he didn't need to know anything about Muggles, had decided to take Arithmancy instead, and Peter had followed him. That left Remus alone in the class that March, staring with a mixture of horror, fascination and respect at Phyllis's mauve and rust-orange sweatervest. They were meant to be learning about Muggle technological and labor innovations in the nineteenth century, but very few people were paying attention. Most of the purebloods—and it wasn't just Slytherins—were gossiping in the back.

"It looks as if she belongs in a museum," Maria Stebbins whispered, three seats behind where Remus sat in the front row. "It's made by hand, probably. Or-" she paused, giggling, "-on a machine."

Professor Rosemond beamed at Maria. "Stebbins," she asked, "I'd love to know what you think of my sweater. There are so many differences between the way wizards are expected to dress and the way Muggles are expected to dress."

"There really are," Maria said, archly. She was not afraid of Professor Rosemond.

"It's been years, I'm afraid, since I really thought about it. What are some of the ways my sweater isn't what you'd expect from a witch?"

Maria paused, sensing a trap now. Remus felt satisfied that she had been shown up. He raised his hand. She called on him.

"Professor," he said. "I think I can answer. I've been doing some reading-" He felt the glares of the class on him. "I was reading a book about Muggle fashions." He paused again, thinking about how James and Sirius were noticeably absent.

"Go ahead, Lupin."

"Well, Muggles have seams in their clothes. Rather than using magic to weave, they rely primarily on large businesses that use factories to produce textiles, and sometimes they put plastics in clothing. Muggles recently have started using bright patterns, and nobody wears robes."

"Thank you, Lupin," Professor Rosemond said.

"Yes, thank you, Lupin," a Slytherin at the back of the class said contemptuously.

"I think it would be super if we could all write a paper on fashion development in the Muggle world since the seventeenth century, actually," Professor Rosemond continued. She was not afraid of her students. "After all, that's about when Wizard fashion in Britain branched off on its own."

"Professor!" someone complained in a shocked voice.

Despite being surrounded by teenagers who routinely jinxed her office door so that frogs fell on her when she walked through it, Phyllis Rosemond had a resolutely calm and cheerful demeanor. Remus had never seen someone so level-headed.

Sirius, meanwhile, was apparently enjoying his free periods after dropping Muggle Studies.

"I think we should make a map of the school," he said. Remus had just finished classes, and had come in to the dormitory to find Sirius had spread large pieces of new parchment all over the floor. Remus's bed, too, was submerged beneath the bleached pale yellow sheets of papery rolls.

"I see," Remus said. He stepped over a large piece of parchment. "Is that my parchment?"

"Some of yours and some of mine and some of Peter's. James keeps his things in such bad condition that I can't take his." Sirius was using a ruler to make straight black lines at right angles on one of the pieces of parchment.

Or, Remus thought, it's that you wouldn't dare take something belonging to James. "I never took you for a cartographer," he said.

"We've been everywhere in the school. We know everything about it," Sirius said. "It'd be really brilliant if we made a map."

Remus raised his eyebrows, watching Sirius make clumsy right angles. "Amazing. What's that you're drawing there?"

"I'm practicing," Sirius said, making a nonsensical line up off the edge of the page.

James thought it was a brilliant idea, when Sirius told him, because of course he did.

"It'll show everything," he said, "and we can leave it behind when we graduate, maybe in our dorm, a little momento from Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail and Moony-"

They were walking to Herbology together. The air was cold against their faces. Remus was feeling slightly ill, since the full moon was approaching and he was also, for some reason, on his period again for the first time since first year. He had woken in a cold sweat before dawn and found blood staining his pajamas and bedsheets. Remus was used to waking covered in his own blood a few times a month, but it hadn't happened in quite this way for years. Luckily, everyone else had been sleeping soundly. Remus had raced down the hall to the bathroom. He'd cleaned himself off with a few Scourgify spells and returned to the dormitory, where he dug out his old book _To Transfygur The Human Forme_. He didn't cry at all through the whole ordeal, which surprised him—only pondered, with some bemused muttering, why he should have the beginnings of stubble on his face but still be bleeding. He wished he knew someone else who had been through the same thing. He found the instructions for the potion he needed, and was planning to go down to the dungeons to steal the ingredients. In the meantime, he had calmly put toilet paper inside his underwear and cast a spell so it wouldn't leak.

In Care of Magical Creatures, they were discussing Beings for the third week in a row. The Care of Magical Creatures classroom was not as cold as the Muggle Studies classroom, as a large fireplace burned behind Professor Kettleburn's desk. Remus's toes still felt cold.

Professor Kettleburn was talking about the creation of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He balanced precariously on one crutch, sometimes, in order to gesture at the board with the other one. His beard was braided and tossed over one shoulder so as not to get in his way.

"Long before the Statute of Secrecy was implemented, as towns across Britain grew for the first time into cities, it was gradually realized we needed rather more government within the Wizarding world. The Departments and Ministry we know now did not exist then, and really were not fully formed until the beginning of the nineteenth century, but it was then that the Wizengamot began to appoint certain wizards to keeping the secret of our kind and protecting all of Britain more efficiently from magical beings. Part of this process, naturally, was the gradual suppression of goblins and the effort to contain and control elf populations," Professor Kettleburn said, making a list in green sparks on the blackboard by waving his wand. The list read: _elves, goblins, centaurs, selkies, trolls, giants, vampires, hags, werewolves_.

"What's that list, Professor?" Peter raised his hand to ask.

"Thank you for asking, Peter," Professor Kettleburn said, his black eyes gleaming. He was one of the only people who really liked Peter, one of the only students who always showed an interest in his class. "It is a list of all the sentient magical nonhuman species commonly found in Great Britain, in order from least dangerous to most."

Remus tensed. He hoped that James and Sirius would not try to make a joke about this.

"I didn't know hags were worse than vampires," someone said.

"It's a matter of dispute," Professor Kettleburn said, turning back to the board, "but vampires can be killed more easily than hags, so I have put them in this order." He peered out at his students. "Very little can kill a hag or a werewolf. As a result, these are the creatures which are most difficult to control."

"I'd think it'd be giants," James said, loudly.

"They're stupid enough," said someone else.

Professor Kettleburn made a little coughing noise. "Well," he said. "As the recent dramatic decline in giant populations proves, this is not the case. Giants die—ahem. Very easily when they are forced to—ahem, uh- live in new areas with unfamiliar groups." He looked as if he was trying very hard not to say something.

Lily Evans was in Care of Magical Creatures too. She raised her hand now. "Professor?"

"Yes, Evans?"

"I was wondering about how you justify having werewolves on that list at all. After all, they're wizards as well, aren't they? I mean, from what I've read, it's just a kind of condition. Lycanthropy."

Remus felt Peter and James looking at him. Sirius, thankfully, looked out the window instead, as if he was bored.

"Muggleborns," Remus heard Susan Abbott say.

Professor Kettleburn swallowed. "It's true," he said, "that werewolves do appear to be just like us for about twenty days and nights out of every month," he began. "But for a week out of every twenty-eight-day moon cycle, give or take a few days, they transform into things which are very clearly _in_human."

"But, Professor, they really are the same as us, aren't they? Their cellular—I mean, their, you know, makeup. Selkies and other species are—well, they're other species. But werewolves _are_ humans. They shouldn't be treated like they're less. I read a paper on it."

Professor Kettleburn tilted his head. "One paper doesn't an argument make," he said, attempting to brush it off. "Activists nowadays get too zealous, I think, though they mean well. You'll find, Evans, that if you ever meet a werewolf—Merlin forbid—you will be singing a different tune before long. Even in their human form, werewolves maintain wolfish tastes. They are human until the point of infection. After that, there is no cure. It's as useful to call them human as it is to take a dead relative to tea with you."

"But, don't ghosts-" Lily began, and then trailed off, apparently feeling it was useless. Remus felt a deep sympathy. You couldn't really argue with wizards without yelling at them or eventually shutting up. Reason wasn't valued very much.

"The Department in its current form took shape only about twenty years ago, when, in the late 1950s, goblins began to borrow ideas from the Wizarding Irish Nationalists and demand again their independence, this time in the form of a separate, underground state, which, they insisted, would be a revival of their ancient kingdom deep within the earth. The goblins, and their allies, were very organized. To bring the crisis to a close, it followed that we should be too. The reason we have the Department," Kettleburn continued, "is to ensure that today, dangerous creatures—and even benign creatures—are kept in places where they can do no harm, or continue to serve wizardkind and humanity in some way." He looked satisfied; he had come to the conclusion of his lecture. "For this purpose, the Department has condensed the population of giants, reduced centaur-controlled forests in Scotland, implemented the Werewolf and increased regulations on selkie intermarriage with wizards."

Their homework was to write about the ways in which sentient creatures benefited from the influence of wizard customs. Remus sat in his dormitory, and tried to think of ways to make it ironic. Kettleburn didn't know he was a werewolf. He decided to put off writing it until after he had dealt with his period.

"I'm going to go to the library", he announced to the rest of them, and set off for the dungeons.


	4. Chapter 4

The hallways were full of first-years heading back from Double Potions, all of them smelling strongly of iodine and sulfur. One girl's fluffy bangs had been singed short. The staircases shifted beneath the crowds of eleven-year-olds, stranding some on floating landings which shuddered and shifted under them. The first-years weren't used to magical architecture yet, and the ones nearest the edge screamed. Remus, who was short, realized it had been years since he had been near people the height of his shoulders.

The dungeons were naturally chilly and their light was watery and orange. The February frost had penetrated down below the crust of the surface. The windows at the end of the corridors that looked out into the waters of the Black Lake were even murkier than usual, since the snow and ice on the surface prevented light from reaching as far below. As one walked further down, the air grew icy and one's fingers began to go numb—isn't it thankful, Remus thought, that I only have Potions for two hours a week. Almost every part of the dungeons was frigid. As winter had set in, Professor Slughorn tried to warm the area around his small office with herbal torches. The heat these generated was negligible, but the heavy smell of lavender permeated the hall. It disoriented Remus as he stepped quietly down the last few stairs to the dungeons where Potions class was held.

Remus hadn't been down in the dungeons to steal ingredients since before fourth year. When the Maurauders needed ingredients for potions, Sirius and James were the ones to go, though recently they had been sending Peter as well, primarily in rat form. Remus stayed behind, writing their essays for them or else standing lookout. Remus was, after all, the good one. Professors knew this; Remus never broke rules.

Remus slid through the door to the classroom as the last haggard first-years stumbled out of it lugging their still-smoking cauldrons. He was prepared to see Professor Slughorn inside the room—he had already invented a story about needing to see a griffin embryo for Care of Magical Creatures, and Slughorn thought so little of Kettleburn that he'd never check to see if it was true—but the professor seemed to have left. The room in the air burned his nose it was so cold; the fires that had warmed the potions were out. Remus walked to the middle of the room, which was now stagnant and silent, and looked towards the supply cupboard. The door stood padlocked at the end of the room. Remus looked over his shoulder. He could see the hallway outside. Students would be showing up here for afternoon Detention soon. He had to hurry.

"Alohamora," Remus muttered. There was a gentle click. He strode over to the cupboard and opened it. Inside, it was larger than the door indicated. Row upon row of glittering jars shone down from shelves stacked three thick; the oldest jars were probably fifty years untouched, sitting under layers of dust from decades of fingers and skin cells that had brushed near them but not lighted on them. Things were poorly organized, the walls a jumble of sometimes-unlabeled bottles and boxes—and why not? One could always magically summon what one needed, no browsing required.

"Accio cotton root bark," Remus said. He held the picture of the plant in his mind, remembering its taste and smell from when he had used it last, in first year. The potion was supposed to be permanent—or at least it hadn't said anything about not being permanent. Maybe the author had just heard the recipe and assumed. Remus had been far too young to make such a complicated potion on his own—maybe that was the problem, maybe he had done it wrong then. It was astounding he'd managed to make a potion that was as effective as it was, considering he had been only eleven.

From back behind several other jars, there was a rattle. A tiny blue container with a black cap shot up and forward with violent speed toward Remus, knocking another jar from the shelf. Remus managed to catch it before it hit the floor, but in doing so he fell halfway against the shelf, shaking it and making a noise like someone stacking dishes. It reverberated throughout the Potions classroom. Remus stood up hurriedly and looked nervously around. He couldn't afford to make such a huge commotion.

"Muffliato," he said, and then, quickly, so he could get out of the Dungeons, "Accio Eurycoma Longifolia, Accio tansy, Accio," he fumbled for the paper where he had written the ingredients, "Spearmint." Remus grabbed at the air as the bottles went whizzing at him. He grabbed them and set them down on the nearest shelf. He wondered whether he should just take the jars; it seemed too much trouble to open them, since he was in such a hurry. He wrapped them hastily in two handkerchiefs and shoved them into his robes. Mission accomplished, he thought, stepping back out into the classroom-

-where he found that Lucius Malfoy was looking directly at him.

"I didn't realize Gryffindors had Potions today," Lucius said mildly. He was well aware that Remus was not supposed to be there, and his body bent lazily back as he stood there, as if he were leaning on the air.

"Oh," Remus said, still startled. He felt the weight of the glass jars in his pockets, heavy as lead.

"I'm so new to these schedules, and I'm afraid Slughorn isn't very good about helping his assistants memorize his classes. I think you must be in the wrong room, though-" Lucius looked around in mock surprise- "I don't see anyone else down here."

"Um, I..." Remus fumbled. "I'm not here for a class. I was, I was looking for Professor Slughorn. You see, I came down to look for a griffin embryo for Care of Magical Creatures." He realized too late that his original story would need some adjusting.

"You must have found it in the cupboard, then?" Lucius smiled. "I didn't think students were allowed access. Or did you get a key?"

"Well," Remus blustered, "that's just the thing, isn't it—the cupboard was open when I got here, so I thought Professor Slughorn must be inside, and I looked, you see, but he wasn't-"

"You were making an awful lot of noise in there. I think you flatter Professor Slughorn by assuming he could be hiding behind a jar of heads in brine."

I should have said I was here for detention, Remus thought. It would have only been a couple hours of line-writing.

Lucius stepped forward. His white-blond hair looked greenish in the dim light; it was parted down the middle in a style that would have been completely stupid anywhere but the Wizarding World. He leered impressively down at Remus. "It so happens that Slughorn has gone up to the kitchens to see if they can make him a brandy. I'm in charge down here for the afternoon."

"Oh," Remus said. He tried to keep his tone light and show no sign of fear. He could feel his cramps coming back, just beneath his stomach. They seemed worse than they had this morning.

"It's really too bad that Slughorn isn't here," Lucius said, "or you might get off scot-free. He thinks your friend Potter's going places. Slughorn's pathetic."

"Isn't he your supervisor? Should you be saying this?" Remus asked. He was still playing the innocent schoolboy—caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, certainly, but not guilty of anything unless one had proof. I don't know, sir, what sir? What's going on? I haven't seen anything, sir.

Lucius made a sudden grab for Remus's collar. It surprised Remus and so he didn't step back in time; he was caught up onto his toes. He swore he heard his spine make a noise as his head snapped back.

"Slughorn might tolerate filthy half-bloods sneaking around in his things, spreading Muggle pests in magical places," Lucius Malfoy said, "but I came back here to ensure that lazy corpulent buggers like him don't ruin this place. I ought to teach you a lesson by hexing your ears off."

Remus wondered what Lucius Malfoy would do if he realized that Remus was not only a half-blood but a transsexual werewolf. Probably hex more than his ears off. Shaky ground, Remus thought. We're on quicksand here. If half-bloods carry pests, what do werewolves carry around with us? Plagues?

"You'd get sacked," he said weakly.

"Maybe eventually. Once you stopped gibbering enough to tell them what happened." But Lucius didn't have his wand out—he just held Remus aloft slightly by his lapels, like a Muggle schoolyard bully. Remus realized that he had been right. Lucius wasn't allowed to harm him and knew it. However, he saw that Lucius was weighing his options.

"Perhaps you could put me down," Remus said tentatively.

Lucius did this, dropping Remus like a sack of potatoes, sniffing hard as if he smelled something foul. Remus guessed that his only option was to flee. He turned quickly to move and was caught by a sharp kick that Lucius delivered between his legs.

"Stay put, half-blood," Lucius said. "Tell me why you were here."

Remus, who had been protected by the sock stuffed in his pants beneath his robes and so not as incapacitated as Lucius clearly believed, pondered what he should say.

"I dared him," said a voice from behind Remus. Remus looked over. Peter was standing there calmly, looking at Lucius as if he were the student and Peter the teacher's assistant. Remus supposed Peter must have been there for a few minutes in his animal form. That's the sort of pest werewolves must bring with us, he thought absently. Rats.

"Excuse me, Pettigrew?"

"I dared him to come down here and find me a dragon's tooth. It was silly, sir, I apologize," Peter said. His tone changed midway from calm to simpering. Peter was getting the feel of his story. "It's just that I didn't believe Remus would actually go looking-" he sniveled. Remus began to stand warily, watching Lucius. Peter was overdoing it, he knew.

But Lucius looked as if he had changed his mind about something. Perhaps it was because now he had two witnesses to his violence instead of one, or just the fact of being outnumbered, but he drew himself up and looked imperiously down at them. He was twenty, but he still acted like a prefect who had just gotten his badge.

"I can't believe this."

Peter cowered. Remus realized that there was an art to cowering. If you were good enough at it, people felt so sorry for you that they couldn't bring themselves to be cruel.

"Both of you, leave at once," Lucius said. "This is ridiculous. You're fifth-year students, not first-year. Twenty points from Gryffindor for both of you. And three night's detention for Lupin."

Remus breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, sir," he said. Lucius scowled, and Peter and Remus both fled the classroom in a hurry. They did not speak as they ran up the stairs, the air around them warming.

When they were back up on the ground floor, students streaming around them on the way to dinner, Remus finally turned to Peter.

"Thank you for that," he said.

"You're welcome," Peter said, beaming. "I'm sorry you got detention."

"Better than being kicked to death by a Pureblood arse like Malfoy. How long had you been there?"

"I followed you when you left. At first I was going to go to the library with you, but then I realized you were lying. Should I not tell Sirius and James about this?" Peter asked, as an afterthought. He looked excited at the idea of having a secret.

"You...it doesn't really matter," Remus said. He disliked the idea of being co-conspirators with Peter, for reasons he could not place. "They'll find out I have detention anyway."

"What did you steal? What is it for?"

Remus felt compelled to answer truthfully, though he was also uncomfortable. If he was vague, though, Peter would only grow more curious. "It's just a health potion," he said. "I've been sick."

"You haven't seemed sick. I'm sorry. Why couldn't you go to the hospital wing?" Peter looked genuinely concerned and sad, and Remus felt like saying, poor baby, poor boy. Unless Peter was indirectly pointing out how stupid that cover story was, in which case, good job Peter. O for Outstanding in emotional manipulation. You could never tell which it was with him.

"It's things for blood, uh, blood potions. For me, for uh, my blood. My...you know. I was trying to stop it." God, this was awful.

Peter looked befuddled. He was still drawing Remus out with confusion or feigned confusion. He would do so until he got the truth.

"Look, it's not anything exciting, all right? I got my period again for the first time in a while and I had to make a potion to stop it."

"Your period?" Peter asked. Remus was pretty sure this surprise was real.

"Yes," Remus snapped.

"I totally forgot you got those," Peter said in wonder.

"I don't, usually. But I must have messed up, because right now I am." Remus felt angry that he was saying all this. Nobody else had to confess when they got their period. Girls didn't because everyone stepped around it. And other boys never had to worry about blood coming from surprising places every month at all.

"Merlin. No wonder you're cranky," Peter said loudly. Remus felt like drowning him, but then he remembered that Peter had saved him, and anyway Peter was at least cracking a joke instead of throwing Remus into a bonfire, at least Peter had bothered to step up to protect him when Lucius Malfoy was about to beat the shit out of him, at least Peter was there at all, paying attention when Remus doubted he deserved it—

"No wonder," Remus said. He felt so tired.


	5. Chapter 5

Strangely, after they got back to the dormitory, Peter made no sign that their trip had been anything unusual. Remus had expected a loud, dramatic retelling at the very least, but Peter only sat down on the bed.

"Not a very long visit to the library," Sirius said.

"No, we were bored," Peter replied without looking up. Remus felt a small, rat-sized kind of gratitude. He bent down as if he were fumbling with his books and felt at the glass jars in his pocket. He needed to get away to make the potion, but he wasn't sure how to do it.

"I also wasn't feeling very well," Remus said. "My stomach hurts."

Sirius looked over at Remus with interest. "The full moon isn't for almost two weeks."

"It's not a moon thing," Remus said. "I maybe ate something weird. Or I'm stressed out." He tried to look ill. It wasn't hard. He rolled onto his bed and covered his face with his hands.

James looked hard at Remus and then turned to Sirius. "What were you saying about the map before they came back, Padfoot?"

Sirius grinned. "Yeah, the map! I figured out how to organize it. We can conjure a temporary map from our memories—like the Pensieve James' dad has in the curio cabinet—and then we'll be able to transfer that map to paper."

"Memory magic is really complicated, Sirius," Remus said, still covering his eyes.

"It can't be that hard. We're Animagi, remember, Moony?"

Remus scowled at the ceiling, moving his hands down. "No," he said. "Like, without a firm receptacle to store the memories, they're likely to fracture and dissipate into whatever magical object is closest. You need to organize a magical template for controlling the memories. Like a pentacle, only probably more modern and less...you know, weird."

"Oh, excuse me, Master of Magic, I didn't realize you knew so much more than we do," James said. He looked put-out and Remus wondered if he should have said anything at all.

"Remus is right, though," Peter said. "And Sirius, you were talking about this with me earlier. I told you, it's harder than just copying memories onto paper. The map has to adjust itself to the castle as the castle changes. It needs to keep track of the castle _as it exists_ if it's going to be useful."

James and Remus stared at Peter, both with expressions of mild shock. Peter appeared proud of himself.

Sirius interjected again. "I mean, it could do that. We can figure out how to do that too. It's just we, you know, need our memories as a base for all that. It's our knowledge this thing is based on anyway, right?"

Peter sighed, and James looked surprised again, but Peter did not seem like he wanted to say anything else at the moment. He opened his Astronomy textbook and began to copy out star charts and which ages they corresponded to. Sirius stared at James, James stared at Peter, and it was all very boring for a few minutes. Remus put his head under his pillow. His cramps were mild, less like something living in his uterus attacking him than a stone rolling around from one hip to the other, very slowly. The inside of his thighs ached, too. He wished he had someone to ask if that was normal. He wondered how long the anti-leak spell would last.

"I think," Remus said, "I think I am going to go take a bath."

"Thrilling," James said, trying to make it a joke.

"Tell us all about it when you're back," Sirius added.

"Oh, don't worry, Sirius, I'll tell you about every moment of my sensual bathing routine," Remus said calmly as he shoved towels into his schoolbag, fingers discreetly rummaging in the bottom to make sure his collapsible cauldron was still inside it. "Every inch of my skin will be retrospectively exposed in language for your listening pleasure. Queer." He stood and left, almost feeling the heat off Sirius's face. He wanted to grin, but he felt that would ruin the moment. He also felt a bit guilty as he glanced around and saw Sirius crestfallen behind him.

"That's a bit much, Moony," James said quietly as Remus shut the door. Remus wanted to turn around and clarify he meant it affectionately, but that would have been a whole other conversation he didn't want to get into. He realized none of them had talked at all about anyone being queer before. Most people used it as an insult, though—but Sirius surely realized Remus was as queer as anyone could be? He practically oozed swishiness.

The fire in the girls' bathroom on the third floor was hard to light because one of the toilets had overflowed a few days ago and it still hadn't totally evaporated off the tiles. Remus eventually managed to stop the damp by casting about three Drying Spells. He had to keep track of the time, too—it wasn't yet time to be back in the dormitories, but it would be by the time the potion was done.

There was a lot of chopping and stewing involved, and Remus felt like he wasn't doing most of it correctly. He tried to remember what he had done in first year, but it seemed a very long time ago. He felt like he was sweating profusely. He felt Moaning Myrtle watching him from one of the stalls, but, as always, she made little effort to hold a conversation.

"I'm going to go and look at prefects," she said eventually, and dissolved through the ceiling.

"You must be very lonely," Remus said absently. He was looking at the potion, which was supposed to be a soft green. It had turned teal after he stirred it for the thirty-sixth time and he wasn't sure if this counted.

"It's awful," Myrtle said, her socks vanishing behind her.

At seven minutes until lights-out, Remus found himself wondering if the potion was still a little too blue. He decided it would work, and gulped it down. It tasted foul and faintly toxic. As he stood to leave, he realized he still hadn't washed. He pointed his wand at his own face.

"Scourgify," he said.

Sirius didn't seem to be talking to Remus the next day, but Remus felt too ill to pay it much attention for most of the day. His period seemed to be gone, but as the morning and then afternoon dragged on, he also began to feel as if his liver was exploding inside him. Whoops. He wondered if he was dying, and felt a quiet pride that at least he had not died and become a ghost in the bathroom. He wondered if he should go to the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey, though trustworthy and generally a kind witch, did not know that he had a uterus. She might, Remus dully imagined, be shocked by the self-transfiguration he had performed. Or, Remus thought, she might try to reverse it. How would he explain what was going on?

Just before Herbology, he decided to go to Professor Sprout. She would know any antidotes as well as Pomfrey would, and probably wouldn't ask much about why he needed them. She was young and eager to demonstrate to students that she was capable of relating to them. He would talk to her after class.

On the way to Herbology, as they walked slowly across the cold grounds, Sirius was scowling ahead and not looking at anyone. James kept trying to talk to him—was he still going to try to take the Potions O.W.L, had he finished that essay yet, what did he think of Honeydukes' new chocolate bar—but Sirius's answers were curt and short. Peter said nothing and walked next to Remus. If he was hoping that Remus would somehow resolve the situation and cheer Sirius back up, he was wrong. Any other day and Remus would have made a tremendous effort to resolve the conflict, but today he was being consumed slowly by vinegar lightning. Sirius could cope. In some corner of his mind, Remus thought that Sirius was being incredibly immature. After I am no longer dying from poisoning myself, Remus thought, I will tell Sirius that I am queer and so is he probably and we're in this together so he should calm the sweet everloving fuck down.

They saw Snape pass by.

"His greasy hair pisses me off," Sirius announced.

"Yes," James agreed, happy to see Sirius emoting and directing his malicious energy outside their circle.

"Like, really pisses me off. What the hell is he, anyway?"

"Yeah, he's a slimeball," James said. Snape heard James' comment and turned around, glaring. As they reached the greenhouse, Remus leaned discreetly against the door for a moment to avoid doubling over with pain.

Herbology was a blur of oddly-colored plants and pain for Remus. He wasn't sure exactly what they were re-potting, but it smelled, and it made the pain seem even worse. He hated everything. When Peter brushed past him and bumped Remus's shoulder, he almost hit him. I need something or I am going to pass out, he thought. That will be a mess.

Some kind of exchange of insults was happening between Sirius and Snape for the entire class period, but Remus tuned most of it out. The only time he looked up was when James had to get up and forcibly stop Sirius from hexing Snape's nose into a slug. After this, Remus pretended they didn't exist. As long as Sirius wasn't mad at him any more, it was all good. In fact, even if Sirius was still mad, it was all good, because Remus did not actually give one iota of a shit. The pain had spread and now it hurt whenever he moved.

After class, he muttered to the rest of the Maurauders that they could go ahead because he needed to talk to Professor Sprout. James looked like he was about to wait up, but Peter and Remus made eye contact and Peter managed to steer the others out the door.

Professor Sprout was sweeping up the loose potting soil and plant clippings the fifth-years had left all over the floor of the greenhouse.

"Professor Sprout?"

"Hm? Oh, Lupin. What is it?"

"Professor, I made a potion for myself last night with cotton root bark and tansy, and I think, uh, I think I may have made it badly," Remus said. "Do you know any antidotes? I don't want to go to the hospital wing. I'm afraid she'll think it's something contagious and quarantine me, and I can't afford that—the O. are coming up, I need to attend every-" he paused as a spasm of pain racked through him, "-class."

"Oh dear. What else were those ingredients mixed with? Was it a distillation or an essential oil or a solution?"

"Just the dried plants. I used olive oil and water as a base, the book said those were neutral. There was also spearmint? And um, I forget exactly what else, but it wasn't toxic either."

"It sounds like an anti-menstrual aid. Why- nevermind," Professor Sprout said quickly, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. She marched out of the greenhouse towards the garden. "I'll get you some very basic herbs," she called over her shoulder. "In the meantime, we have emergency bezoars under the counter by the gloves. Swallow one."

Remus looked around and moved to the counter. There was indeed a cardboard box with some round rocks inside of it.

"Swallow it?"

"You'll cough it back up once it's neutralized the poison."

Remus did as he was told. He choked on the stone, unable to breathe, and fainted onto the cold stone floor. When he opened his eyes again, Professor Sprout was propping him up against the workbench so she could Vanish the pool of vomit he had left on the floor.

"You should be fine, now, at least until you metabolize more of the potion," she said. "Make a tea with the other herbs as soon as possible, though." She shoved a bundle into Remus's hands. "And please don't self-medicate again. Come to me or Poppy or at least go to a student who knows what they're doing."

Remus felt like a child who had been admonished for trying to eat something he shouldn't have. He realized he'd been stupid, but what choice was there, really, anyway?

"Thank you, Professor, I will," he said. He stood shakily and turned to go. "You won't believe how much you've helped. If I can help out with anything before I go, my next class isn't until-"

"Why did you need this potion?" Professor Sprout said suddenly.

"Oh," Remus said. "Um."

"It's an anti-menstrual. I mean, I assume you don't have menses. I hope you weren't trying to use it to stop some other sort of blood, because Lupin, you should know better than that, potions are specifically designed to match-"

"I understand, Professor," Remus said quickly. "I'm terrible with potions. I won't let it happen again."

"You're just not that foolish, Lupin."

"I am, though," Remus said, grimacing. Professor Sprout stared at him. "Thank you again. I'm really grateful."

"I should report this. Students-"

"-poison themselves all the time around here, right?"

"First years, Lupin, not fifth."

"Look, Professor, please-"

"I won't report you, Lupin. I'm just concerned."

Remus sighed. "I am too," he said. "Sometimes I worry about myself a lot." He left quickly, after that, sprinting across the grounds to try and find Sirius and the others. They had an hour free now, too-

As Remus walked towards the castle, a commotion near the lake caught his eye. He could make out the forms of Sirius and Snape, silhouetted against the white reflective water. He hurried towards them. There was a small gaggle of students watching them.

"-so fucking proud with your nose in the air all the time," Snape was saying. "You act as if you haven't disgraced your family, disgraced whatever claim to honor you had, imitating Muggles, it's so stupid-"

"-at least I haven't got a rubbish nose and greasy hair and a nasty personality-"

"-you act as if you own the world! You don't!" Snape shouted. Remus could see zits erupting on the side of his face. He wondered if Snape had been greasy before or after everyone started calling him greasy. Chicken-or-the-egg, insult-or-the-grease?

"I'm so fed up with people like you, you act all quiet and shy but you really just think you're entitled to judge everyone, to tell us anything-" Sirius was walking in circles, in oblong rings around Snape.

"You and Potter hang about with scum like Pettigrew and Lupin because you think it makes you seem _kind_," Snape began.

"Take that back," James said. He had been standing back until now. "Don't ever call any of my friends that."

"Scum," Snape said. The crowd was rapt.

"Take it back!" Sirius's wand was suddenly pointed sharply at Snape's throat. Remus, who was totally unfazed by such bland insults, felt sorry for Snape.

"Simpering lackey brown-nosing scum. They want you to protect them. Everyone who you think likes you only really plays along because they think you'll treat them better."

"I'm warning you," James said, holding back Sirius's wand arm while pointing his own wand at Snape. Implicit in this gesture was that Sirius's hex would be worse, but Remus imagined the threat to Snape was about the same on both sides. He still hung back. He didn't feel like getting involved. He looked for Peter, but couldn't see him anywhere.

"Why, can't stand anyone insulting your special friends? The House of Black and the House of Potter, united to protect a fat loser and a queer w-"

"SARDINIUS ERUCTO!"

Snape was knocked backward, and for a second Remus thought he had been knocked out. He looked around nervously for professors. As usual, though, there were none to be seen now that students were in danger. As Snape sat up, several small sardines fell from his nose.

Sirius laughed, too loudly. "Now," he announced with the air of a circus ringmaster, "you can smell what the rest of us have to whenever we're near enough to get a whiff of your breath." Some of the students watching laughed. Snape sat up halfway, glaring at them all, and making odd gasping noises as sardines fell wetly around him. He seemed incapable of moving and eventually lay back down again. James was trying to look stern at Sirius but could only manage to muffle his own laughter. The crowd, convinced the show was over, began to disperse, walking off towards the castle. As they left, Remus started to approach. He was thinking of the admonishment he might give to Sirius.

But Snape wasn't finished yet. Snape leapt again to his feet, sardines falling onto the grass and sticking to the front of his robe. Sirius and James were laughing and weren't expecting anything back from the hex's victim. They had both lowered their defenses and had averted their gaze. As Snape rose to his feet, Sirius turned slowly toward Snape, his mouth slack in mild surprise, still laughing. He scrambled to get his wand up again in time, but Snape was too fast.

"Sectumsempra," the greasy-haired teenager said calmly, pointing his wand at Sirius's chest.


	6. Chapter 6

At first, for a moment, nothing happened. Sirius started to laugh—that was when the blood started coming out of his mouth. It flowed black down his chin and onto his collar. It wasn't like when you bit your tongue or had a nosebleed. As Sirius's mouth fell open in surprise, blood poured out onto the frosty brown earth. Remus had trouble telling what it was at first, it was so dark. James looked as if he didn't know what to do. Most of the students who had been gathered around had left, and the few who were still watching scattered or shrieked as they saw the wounds begin to appear. Gashes were opening in Sirius's face and chest. Sirius gasped as red stained his clothes. He began to emit a low whimpering sound and staggered backwards into James.

Snape looked surprised and horrified at what he had accomplished, his gaping mouth exposing coffee-yellow teeth. Steam was rising from the open cuts in Sirius's skin and from the noses and mouths of the huddled teenagers.

"What have you done?" Remus shouted at Snape. He was surprised by the loudness of his own voice as he tripped forward. He was hoarse, unexpectedly, and his voice squeaked up into a whisper and then fell back into a shout. "What the fuck is this?" He was too far away; Snape did not even seem to hear him.

"That'll teach you," Snape said in a very unthreatening tone of voice. He sneered, leaning forward, off-balance after the force of his spell. Sardines still fell from his nose and made his downy mustache damp with fish oil that stank in the cold air. Remus approached quickly, walking, not daring to speed up, sure he would slip and fall on the icy ground. He reached James and moved to help hold Sirius, who was lolling senselessly back, blood pouring from him. Snape looked on stupidly. The charged atmosphere had evaporated on both sides; the air was dead and cold and James was silent and panicked. Snape didn't seem to have anticipated this and looked uncertainly around, figuring out how to exit. He looked at James, trying to muster some sort of closure, some silent note of triumph. It fell flat as the fish on the ground. Snape held his arms over his face and fled, dropping fish and gagging on them, staggering away, quite silent.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Remus yelled again hoarsely. He could have pursued Snape but didn't.

"He's got fish up his nose, Moony, leffim alone," Sirius muttered from between them. He tried to laugh. He coughed and blood sprayed everywhere.

"Don't talk," Remus said to Sirius. Sirius was quiet and Remus hooked his hands under his arms. James grabbed Sirius around his back and knees and they lifted him together.

"Hospital wing?"

"We have to move fast," Remus said. He was surprised by his own inclination to babble on and barely suppressed it. He felt angry at James and Sirius. If Sirius died, it would be his own fault for getting into stupid macho battles to prove something about himself. Remus wondered if it was also James' fault and decided it was. If Sirius died Remus wasn't talking to any of the remaining Maurauders ever again. Sirius's blood was getting on his shirt.

James said nothing as they moved. His dark eyes were set somewhere over Remus's shoulder. He looked intensely ashamed, and Remus realized he wouldn't be able to stay mad at James. This made him even angrier.

They dragged Sirius to the hospital wing, leaving a trail of blood on the grass. Remus smelled the hot ironic salt of blood in the air and wondered if James could as well, or if it was just a wolf thing. As they entered the castle, Peter appeared out of nowhere at Remus's arm.

"What happened?" he asked, too loud.

"Snape," James muttered. Peter looked with—awe?-at Sirius's flopping unconcious form.

"Fucking help us out," Remus snapped. Peter started.

"Please," James said.

Madame Pomfrey looked up and rushed over as they came in. A first-year with an ankle bent at an odd angle craned his neck and looked over curiously.

"What on earth-?"

"Please, Madame Pomfrey," James began, "I can explain-"

"Leave excuses for later, Potter" Madame Pomfrey said, summoning a stretcher and arranging Sirius on it. "He's lost a lot of blood. He needs potions immediately. Remus, get me the blue vial from my shelf in the office."

It was a restorative, stoppered neatly in an indigo semi-translucent vial that Remus took after the full moon of each month—it was labeled with a Latin inscription which Madame Pomfrey had told him meant "for unusual injuries". It made Remus's scars fade more quickly, though of course they never healed completely: werewolf wounds never really went away. Madame Pomfrey kept it in her own office because it wasn't officially the school's property—she had bought it with her own money after realizing that normal healing potions left Remus's scars as nasty as ever, huge raised red welts that stayed for months dark as the first day.

Remus got the potion and brought it out. Madame Pomfrey had stopped the bleeding and was trying to close the wounds with her wand and not having much success. She was clearly panicking.

"I've never seen something like this on a student," she said, more to herself than anyone else. "It looks like very dark magic. I can slow the bleeding, but I don't recognize this curse. The countercurse is what I need. I don't suppose any of you know it."

"No," James said.

"That's what I imagined," Pomfrey said through gritted teeth.

Remus, James and Peter watched solemnly as Madame Pomfrey hurried to attend to bandages and then closing the cuts. Blood continued to seep out; Remus thought that Sirius must have lost about a gallon by now, which should be fatal, but then again wizards had better healing powers so perhaps not. Pomfrey's face was red and sweating. Light came in the windows of the hospital wing like cold white dust and settled in particles. James was pale like the color of a tea-stained handkerchief, the blood drained from his face. Time seemed to pass in waves of two-second increments, in slow hiccupy heartbeats. Remus sought out comparisons and metaphors in order to figure out what was happening. Sirius had crusted blood around his mouth and his hair was blacker than black against the bleached linen sheets on the hospital bed. He looked like Snow White from the Muggle fairy tales, Remus thought, only a little more hairy and stupid. Meanwhile, sitting and picking at his hands next to Remus, Peter looked like nothing in particular. Peter never looked like anything.

An hour passed; they missed their last classes. Eventually Madame Pomfrey tried something she thought might work from an old book on her desk and Sirius's scars began to knit themselves together. They also began to smoke, but Madame Pomfrey seemed confident it would all be all right. She smiled down at Sirius, patted her hands on her apron, looked up, frustrated and disheveled from her efforts, and glared at them all.

"What were you doing that let him get into this state?" Madame Pomfrey asked.

"Well, see, we were messing about with this old broom Sirius found," James started, his nose wrinkling to push up his glasses in that way it did when he was inventing a stupendous lie. Remus didn't pay attention after that. He looked out at the gray clouds and wondered what his life would be like if Sirius had really died. He couldn't think about it that much. Everything seemed a little faded and jittery.

James finished his lie and Madame Pomfrey seemed to accept it. It had been something to do with an accidental exclamatory curse gone wrong—directed at a broom or some other inanimate object-which explained why Pomfrey with all her knowledge hadn't been able to figure out a countercurse. Remus felt a slight out-of-body fury with James still, despite his repentant expression. He knew that James risked expulsion for duelling, but Sirius had almost died. Just because the danger was magically over (as it always was with James, always, just in the nick of time) didn't mean it hadn't been present. Remus longed for a way to process what had just happened, but he didn't have one. The crusted blood was already drying and flaking away; the smoke that had risen from the scars had cleared.

Surely there will be repercussions for this later, Remus thought.

They snuck into the passageway through the hag statue's hump and went to Honeydukes so Sirius would have something nice to wake up to. The earth smell brought Remus back to his senses, like it always did, so reminiscent was the earthy passageway of the nights walking through the other passage to the Shrieking Shack. It always put him on his toes and made him feel as if he was touching the edge of his senses. He had to remind himself it wasn't the full moon.

When they got to Honeydukes, they were doing inventory above the trapdoor and there was a lot of movement. Light shone through the cracks at the edge of the trapdoor. They remembered that only one of them could fit under James' Invisibility Cloak at a time.

"What do we do?" Peter asked. They all had to whisper.

"I can sneak past them," James said.

"Oh, sure," Remus said. "I'll just stand guard."

"You two really didn't need to come, I suppose," James said to Remus and Peter. "Sorry."

"I could go with you as a rat," Peter suggested hopefully.

"They'd notice a rat and kill you straightaway," James said.

"If I went under the cloak-"

"No, Peter, stay here, I don't want to sit in a hole in the ground by myself," Remus said. Peter looked crossly at Remus but stopped arguing with James.

"I'll be back," James said, and quickly slid the trapdoor back and hopped out.

Remus and Peter were left staring at one another.

"Where were you earlier?" Remus asked.

"I was just inside," Peter said.

"Why?" Remus pressed. He saw Peter was uncomfortable and relished it. Coward, he thought. You'd love to be like them but you can't even stick around in a fight.

"I just went ahead. Snivelly and Sirius were arguing and it was stupid. They both are trying to be better than the other and they're both full of it and it's really depressing."

Remus related to this and stopped feeling aggressive towards Peter at once. He wondered how badly one could misjudge a person one called a friend. "Oh," he said.

"I don't like being around them when they get into fights. I get all worked up and it makes me feel like a bad person later." Peter shrugged and leaned against the wall. Above them, one of the clerks asked another clerk if she'd seen that box over there move on its own.

"I understand," Remus said. "Sirius has this pride about him and it's really surreal-" he paused. "For me, anyway. I just never had that."

"Sometimes I wonder if I've been hanging out with the wrong people," Peter said. "Sirius acts like he's this big hero and I feel pretty sure we're all going to die because of it."

There was a long moment of silence. Remus considered Peter. "Or just Sirius," he said.

"No, all of us. He's like a cyclone. I bet he's an Aries." Peter was touching his own face in the dark and Remus knew he was picking at a pimple. He wondered if he should tell Peter he had very good night vision and could see what Peter was doing.

"If we all die it'll be because we're all stupid in different ways," Remus countered. He didn't like to blame everything on Sirius.

"I came up with the idea for that map, you know," Peter said, too loudly, out of the blue. Above them, movement stopped for a second. Remus rocked forward onto his feet, ready to make a break for it. But the clerks seemed to shrug it off after a minute, and the noise of stamping clogs and shifting boxes began again.

"You did?" Remus asked, crouched.

"Sirius keeps acting like he came up with the whole thing. I was the one who drew blueprints for it in my journal. I _showed_ them to him. But I wasn't going to make it until our seventh year because it's stupid, it could get left lying anywhere- anyway, he decided I guess that we're doing it this year instead."

"That's awful," Remus said, wondering why he had never known that Peter kept a journal. He wondered if it had a little lock on it. He wondered why Peter was telling him this.

"And last week he called me fat in front of everyone at breakfast and laughed like it was a joke and I know he thinks it is but I'm not really fine with it at all, and then he goes and gets into trouble for no reason and it gets us all- oh, shit, James is coming back," Peter said. He rose to his feet haphazardly.

James dropped through the trapdoor with a thud and closed it quickly. They ran back up the passageway with the box of chocolate that he'd taken. James was grinning by the end. Guilt over and done with now that chocolate has been procured, I guess, Remus thought.

Peter gave Remus this look when Sirius woke up and thanked them for the chocolate and immediately began talking of how to get revenge on Snape. Remus could tell it was a look that invited Remus to join in quiet dislike for Sirius and all his plans, but Remus didn't return it. Peter looked disappointed and looked away, his face falling. Remus didn't look back at Peter for a while. He couldn't argue that his motives were exactly pure, but he preferred to cast his lot with James and Sirius when it came down to it. He knew Peter was the same way. After all, that was why they were all friends.


End file.
